Tourniquet training adds to paramedic’s medic arsenal (With video)

Ambulance crews across Windsor and Essex County have completed training on another piece of life-saving equipment they will soon have at their disposal.

Acting Chief Bruce Krauter of the Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Service said Friday that eight weeks of spring training have concluded and in a matter of months tourniquets will be stocked for use by paramedics. This comes as part of the annual EMS spring training held for all employees.

“Right now every OPP officer and tactical police officer with some of the police services, they all carry tourniquets for their wellbeing,” said Krauter. “EMS, we don’t have tourniquets in the ambulances right now so we have to rely on the police departments but our medics are trained to the same level (of tourniquet use).”

The object of the class time was to brush up on a variety of subjects including bariatric patient care techniques and to get hands on with equipment such as tourniquets and enhanced pressure dressings. The training and forthcoming equipment will cost the county around $10,000 by the time the equipment orders ship.

Krauter projects around 100 tourniquets will be needed by September, to put one in every of the 38 ambulances and to have a backup supply to replace them as necessary.

A blue training tournequit is pictured at the Essex County Civic Centre, April 28. (RICK DAWES/The Windsor Star)

The topics of these training modules are decided based upon medic recommendations and emergency-call data. Krauter said there were 20 to 30 medical calls on record where a tourniquet or enhanced pressure dressing could have been used to achieve a better service response.

“It was brought forward by a paramedic, Tom LeClair, having expertise in trauma and military trauma,” said Krauter.

LeClair is an Advanced Care Paramedic and said tourniquets have been used throughout battlefield medicine history to stop life-threatening bleeding.

“Tourniquets were born in battle but for our purposes, we think of it for rescue medicine,” said LeClair, an advanced care paramedic. “The ability to control a life threatening hemorrhage in the worst case scenario gives you two, three, four minutes for the right things to be done or you will lose a life.”

LeClair said a successful tourniquet has a strap that encircles the limb and a windlass rod to tighten the strap, effectively cutting off blood flow.

“Trying to encircle the limb and just tie it tightly usually doesn’t stop work with life-threatening bleeding,” said LeClair. “Serious venous bleeding might stop, but not big arterial bleeding.”

Accidents that mangle or shred limbs are cases where blood loss happens quickly and the tourniquets shines.

“That’s the way the tourniquet is right? If you need it, there are very few substitutes,” said LeClair.

Cutting off blood flow can be detrimental to muscle and nerve tissues, but research shows this takes over an hour. LeClair said he thinks pressure bandages and wound base dressing would be used more often, but having a tourniquet is a critical tool.

“The senior medics who’ve had some of those bad cases over the years … ya, most of them reflect, ‘Wow, it’s about time.’ And they mean both the gear and the training,” said LeClair.

A paramedic inspects training gear at the Essex County Civic Centre, April 28. Every year Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Service holds spring training classes to brush up on skills. (RICK DAWES/The Windsor Star)

Advanced Care Paramedic, Thomas LeClair, instructs a class of Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Service paramedics at the Essex County Civic Centre, April 28. Every year Essex-Windsor EMS holds spring training classes to brush up on skills. (RICK DAWES/The Windsor Star)

Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Service paramedics assess and treat a mannequin as part of training at the Essex County Civic Centre, April 28. Every year Essex-Windsor EMS holds spring training classes to brush up on skills. (RICK DAWES/The Windsor Star)

Primary Care Paramedic, Shannon Ingall, performs a demonstration with a pressure dressing at the Essex County Civic Centre, April 28. Every year Essex-Windsor EMS holds spring training classes to brush up on skills. (RICK DAWES/The Windsor Star)

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I don’t know about impossible, but given that it’s taken almost 20 years to churn out five instalments of this series – something the early Bond franchise managed in six years, and the 1960s M:I TV show in just six weeks – these missions are certainly a lot of work